“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” opens the first TV spot for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. We’re going to start referring to homeless people as “hobbits” now. This will replace our previous euphemism, “fragrant sidewalk jockeys”.

That first TV spot is below and is accompanied by several new pictures, including the five Hobbit variant covers of tomorrow’s issue of Empire. We also have the first picture of Elijah Wood in the movie. We almost forgot about Frodo having a cameo. Now if only we could see what Stephen Colbert’s cameo is.

We also know the running time of the movie, as Peter Jackson tells Empire, “It’s looking like it’s going to be about ten minutes shorter than Fellowship was, so it’s going to be officially our shortest Middle-earth yet. I mean, Fellowship was just under three hours and this is about 2 hours 40 minutes at the moment.”

Yes, you read that right. The first of three Hobbit movies is 2 hours and 40 minutes long. That’s a lot of dwarf singalongs.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens this December 14th, and advance tickets go on sale November 7th. I’m already getting my Starfish Hair Guy costume ready. Yeah, I know his name is Nori, but he’ll always be Starfish Hair Guy to me.